College-educated boosting marriage numbers, study says

The Pew Research Center recently published a study that found an uptick in marriages in 2012 - with 4.32 million adults being married, which is up from 4.21 million in 2011.

Herb Scribner

College-educated people are making marriage cool again.
The Pew Research Center recently published a study that found an uptick in marriages in 2012 - with 4.32 million adults being newly married, up from 4.21 million in 2011. And most of those new marriages are among those with college degrees.
Though these numbers are encouraging, they don't reflect stability of marriage over the longer haul, writer Richard Fry noted in Pew's article. The percentage of married people in 2012 was down slightly from 2011, from 50.8 percent to 50.5 percent.
What's more, education levels matter, Fry said. "The long-run trends on entry into marriage clearly show that less-educated adults have become less likely to ever get married."
Age is also a factor.
"We know from the Census's Current Population Survey that young adults are pushing back the age at which they first marry," Pew reported.
In 2013 the median age at which men married was 29.0, slightly higher than the previous year; that age was 26.6 for women, which stayed mostly level.
But is it a bad thing to marry young? It might not be, according to Mercator, a website that analyzes ethical and policy issues. Research done by Mercator showed that marrying young can be good for mental health.
Young married couples tend to drink alcohol less. In addition, they "carry with them a heightened sense of responsibility and obligation and a less active social calendar," which leads to a healthier life, Nicole M. King wrote on Mercator.
There's also plenty to do after getting married at a young age, the Huffington Post reported. Writer Amy Popp published a list of things she "can still do" despite having gotten married at the age of 22. The article was written in response to Vanessa Elizabeth's "23 Things to Do Instead of Getting Engaged When You're 23," which spoke against marrying young.
"I believe the point of Ms. Elizabeth's misguided story was to rally the troops to seize the day, get out of the office and explore the world and try new things," wrote Popp. "Don't be down about your relationship status but embrace today knowing that sooner or later you will find someone who you want to be with for a week, for a year or forever - and who will be happy you're able to do all 23 of those things with or without them."%3Cimg%20src%3D%22http%3A//beacon.deseretconnect.com/beacon.gif%3Fcid%3D143803%26pid%3D46%22%20/%3E